NGD ENGL FIREBALL 60

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mchn13

mchn13

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Ive only owned a couple engls, and tried a few more;(savage,se,powerball,and 530 preamp), so my knowledge isnt extensive. But, i bought an old fireball 60 head used on gc’s scratch and dent, and its sick! Ive only heard what pos’s they are, and that they are noisy, but this one is killer AND i got it cheap. What im trying to figure out is if it has been modded in any way? It has a sticker on v2 saying it takes a 12ay7 only, and has an ultra gain trim pot for the input gain. Doesnt concern me as it sounds just brutal, and mixes stereo with my 6505+ perfectly, and especially mixing with the peavey cuts just fine and sounds huge!!
Does anyone know if this is standard issue or has it been altered? Thanks.
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Also it cleaned up nice considering it looks to have been in a flood lol.
 

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Congrats and enjoy!


Marshall and Engl are my two go to real tube amps.
 
JackBootedThug said:
I want to try an Engl….congrats bro!
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Well my experience has been so far that they all share some similarities, but are wildly different. I really like the voicing of the fireball more than any of the others ive played. It reminds me of a more modern, not honky block letter, which is probably why i get along with it so well. Also pretty cheap on the used market.
 
I keep a Powerball 1 that’s great for mixing with other amps . It just does death metal really good . Live it mushes out of playing really loud but it’s great in studio
 
311splawndude said:
Boy I'll say :LOL:

Looks great now and congrats :cheers: How much?
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Around $600 shipped to my local gc. It has what looks like a mod that im trying to figure out, but doesnt detract from it. Has a ton of gain even with the trim and gain at noon. Holds up to my peavey and not noisy at all, which is not what ive heard about these at all.
 
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Techdeth said:
I keep a Powerball 1 that’s great for mixing with other amps . It just does death metal really good . Live it mushes out of playing really loud but it’s great in studio
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I had one of the early powerballs and that how i found it too. This one seems more voiced like the 5150, and especially in stereo has no trouble hanging.
 
mchn13 said:
I had one of the early powerballs and that how i found it too. This one seems more voiced like the 5150, and especially in stereo has no trouble hanging.
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I had the fireball 60 too . We play loud . I didn’t think hung as well either . But the new ones have bigger transformers so that might rectify that problem for me
 
That is absolute a mod. Here's an unaltered Fireball 60. Mine is slightly newer so black chassis and smooth tolex, but the design/circuit is unchanged from the silver front models like yours:

NFX_4948.jpg


As far as what that control actually does, I have no idea. Putting a 12AY7 (45% gain of a 12AX7) in V2 will have an affect on each channel since V2B's gain stage is used on both. The location of the pot also doesn't indicate anything, since the PCB's in these are flipped and not silk screened I have no idea what is around that spot in the chassis.

Either way, I find I never use mine above the halfway mark even when I want absolute full on, unboosted saturation - so I imagine having a trim of some sort makes the gain control on the front panel more usable. Or alternatively, it might be a method to set your clean tone and overdrive tones closer, for example, if you would like to have a crunch rhythm tone and not-as-saturated lead tone. I really like the sound of my Fireball with the clean channel gain maxed out, but that kills the ultra channel - so on yours, try this: Set gain on the front panel to max, then roll back the trim. Do you now have a crunch channel and a not-oversatured lead channel? If so, that's pretty sweet. And the whole reason the Fireball 25 and Fireball 100 have separate gain controls per channel.
 
TotallyRadGuitars said:
That is absolute a mod. Here's an unaltered Fireball 60. Mine is slightly newer so black chassis and smooth tolex, but the design/circuit is unchanged from the silver front models like yours:

View attachment 260676

As far as what that control actually does, I have no idea. Putting a 12AY7 (45% gain of a 12AX7) in V2 will have an affect on each channel since V2B's gain stage is used on both. The location of the pot also doesn't indicate anything, since the PCB's in these are flipped and not silk screened I have no idea what is around that spot in the chassis.

Either way, I find I never use mine above the halfway mark even when I want absolute full on, unboosted saturation - so I imagine having a trim of some sort makes the gain control on the front panel more usable. Or alternatively, it might be a method to set your clean tone and overdrive tones closer, for example, if you would like to have a crunch rhythm tone and not-as-saturated lead tone. I really like the sound of my Fireball with the clean channel gain maxed out, but that kills the ultra channel - so on yours, try this: Set gain on the front panel to max, then roll back the trim. Do you now have a crunch channel and a not-oversatured lead channel? If so, that's pretty sweet. And the whole reason the Fireball 25 and Fireball 100 have separate gain controls per channel.
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Thanks. Thats probably it. Ill mess with it at practice today for sure.
 
So someone on the engl group said it was definitely a mod as well, and after more searching i found this amp for sale on harmony central back in ‘08 !!
Idk if the mod will do anything for me, but the amp sounds ripping and cleaned up pretty good.
 
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It’s likely been modded. That was not an advertised feature of the originals. The schematics floating around (albeit erroneous) don’t show it existing at all either.

Can you post gut shots? That would help the most. ENGL loves thin PCBs, if it’s a chassis mounted pot it’s aftermarket.
 
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